Page 20 of Stalked By Pestilence

It was still at the back of my head—the way Zelus walked away without so much as saying goodbye or hassling me for more time. I hadn’t known the asshole long, but it seemed out of character, like he’d been on the hunt for something.

Maybe he saw another conquest and worried about a messy conflict. That seemed relatively likely with a playboy as pretty as he was.

I pulled the jacket tighter around me, the waft of his intoxicating cologne hitting me in a rush. Fuck, the asshole was a lot of things, but at least he smelled good. Like lick and drive my nose into his neck any chance I got good.

Hating myself a bit more every time I caved into my attraction for him, I sighed and started to trek the way home. If I cut through a few side streets, I could shave a few minutes off my walk, so I hurried to take the first street I came on.

It was a narrow walk for the first part, but it’d open up before I had to make a right. My footsteps felt oddly loud in my ears asI turned the corner and made for the next street, a block from mine.

Lightning cracked overhead, giving my heart a start, and I stopped without meaning to. Mist sprayed with a gust of wind, hitting me directly in the face. I blinked it away, only to find I was no longer alone in the street. A lone figure blocked my path. My hand instantly went to my phone, but the shadow-like figure faded and disappeared.

“What the fuck…?”

Was I actually losing my mind? Was I going to have to make a quick call to see a shrink despite pledging to never cave and spill my heart out to a stranger? That was what best friends with a penchant for punching first, asking questions later and meaningless sex were for.

God knows my fucked-up relationship with my parents would be forefront of that illuminating conversation—the therapist needling for more on how my dad, in his infinite wisdom, strutted me around his friends like a goddamn show horse and let them make uncomfortable comments about my body and how much I’d grown to be a woman.

Fucking gross.

Or how my mom, when not drugged to her absolute fucking ears, barely noticed she had a daughter. Not until it was something she could exploit for her never-ending venture into society’s limelight. The sycophant dreamed of the day when her face was splattered across headlines as being the woman of the hour. A real Kardashian.

Or that night. The night I lost faith in men as a whole.

But how could any of that possibly explain someone disappearing and sometimes seeing weird shit like reptilian eyes, scales, and fangs?

I whipped my head around, checking behind me, but no one was there. I looked back ahead. Still, no one. Great, so Iwaslosing my mind. I’d gone full-blown crazy. A little overkill for a midlife crisis, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

My legs were a bit shakier as I slowly started to walk again. Another crack of lightning, and then rain poured down in a heavy sheet. I was soaked in an instant. Just what I needed. Crazy needed a look, and currently it was drowning-dog chic.

I growled and stomped ahead, shedding water like a cloak in my rage, but the figure I’d seen before appeared in front of me in a blink. Surprised, my ankle caught under me. I lurched forward and took a direct hit to the knee in my fall. Agony spliced up my leg, but my pain was overshadowed by the eerie creature who’d appeared in front of me.

The figure had taken to crouching, close enough to see nothing but a glowing set of red-orange eyes. Nothing else stood out—no mouth or nose, no distinguishing anything. It was just a black silhouette with a humanoid shape.

Its shadowy hand reached out and took strong hold of my face. Its touch seared flesh on contact, and I cringed back, but the thing was too strong. I couldn’t move. Then its hand was around my throat, squeezing, making the reality of what this was more real with every solid touch.

My chest hitched on a gasp, too stunned, too confused, to even think of screaming or running. I was frozen by fear, throat burning where it had a hold on me.

“He always gets what he wants, Emily,” a hissing voice whispered, echoing across my mind as if the sound was put right inside it. “And not even a Horseman can stop him.”

Horseman? What the fuck was this thing talking about?

Water poured down my face as I opened my mouth, bent on saying something saucy but choking on the words. I couldn’t form a response or gather my wits long enough to understand what the fuck was happening.

But I didn’t have to.

Out of nowhere, the figure was lofted straight across the street, nearly a hundred feet from me. The minute its body made impact with the asphalt, it was pinned under a familiar boot. Scales rippled across the newcomer’s colorful flesh as the huge man swept back rain-soaked red hair and snarled.

“For fuck’s sake…” The guttural rumble of his voice wasn’t anything I’d ever heard on him before. “Now you lot have gone and ruined bloody everything. Cheers for that.”

The creature trapped under his boot hissed something I couldn’t make out, but the tautness of his jaw and clenching of every visible muscle suggested whatever it said had pissed him off. The tattoos and muscles that composed his body swelled with fury.

I couldn’t do anything but watch as the same guy whose jacket I wore lifted a clawed hand and decapitated my shadowy attacker. In a single moment, every part of him was inhuman. A beast like the thing pinned under his foot. A nightmare. But whatever that nightmare was, it’d come to save me.

The blackness that formed the creature’s body blasted out like a wispy explosion before fading away. Too much had occurred in those few heart-stopping minutes to blame on a trick of light orthe storm overhead. What I’d seen wasn’t reality; it was a show only Hollywood could compose. A supernatural alt-verse.

A surprised whimper lodged itself in my throat, fear climbing through my veins and wreaking havoc on my pulse. “Zelus?”

Zelus cast his reptilian gaze my direction, the color ignited brighter than the lightning in the sky, shimmering ethereal otherworldliness. “Hello, Viper.”